


second

by fenying



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Haikyuu!! Fusion, Alternate Universe - High School, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Ha Sooyoung | Yves & Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul are Best Friends, Volleyball, coming to terms with the fact that someone younger than you is better than you, jinsol as semi, lip as shirabu, sooyoung is not ushijima but she might as well be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenying/pseuds/fenying
Summary: The spite that rose up in Jinsol when she was removed from her position of Idarui’s official first-string setter, hot and ugly and bubbling like poison, faltered when she was faced with the reality of who Kim Jungeun really was—honest, passionate, and undeniably the better setter for their team. It didn’t disappear, though, it just redirected.Jinsol could never hate Jungeun, but it’s so, so easy to hate herself.
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul & Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip
Comments: 21
Kudos: 98
Collections: Director's Cut Fest





	second

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gildedlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gildedlily/gifts).



> this is for lily, who has inflicted me with so many brain worms that i started thinking about semi vs shirabu and this happened. sometimes you just have to project on fictional characters to cope <3

It’s easier to not hate Kim Jungeun than she thought it would be. 

Jinsol sits at the far end of the gym, under the pretense of stretching but really just watching Jungeun toss ball after ball to Sooyoung. It’s hard not to admire the perfect curve through the air the ball takes before being mercilessly slammed down, hitting just inside the line. More than a well-oiled machine, the two of them operate like they share a single mind. It’s like Jungeun understands Sooyoung’s play style on a level that Jinsol never could. 

And that’s why she’s the one standing on the court next to her, while Jinsol is on the sidelines. 

But Jungeun is just a girl with spades of talent, perseverance to match, and a love for volleyball. It was not with malice that she, despite being a year younger, usurped Jinsol’s position—just an overwhelming desire to win. That’s not something Jinsol could ever hate, as hard as she tries—it’s the reason she’s here, the reason they’re all here. 

Jinsol watches the gears in Jungeun’s head spin, correcting her tosses bit by bit with each new ball that comes to her. Kim Jungeun is a prodigy, they say, but she’s more than that. She’s a genius, but she also works like a bull, has the single-minded enthusiasm of a child. 

The spite that rose up in Jinsol when she was removed from her position of Idarui’s official first-string setter, hot and ugly and bubbling like poison, faltered when she was faced with the reality of who Kim Jungeun really was—honest, passionate, and undeniably the better setter for their team. It didn’t disappear, though, it just redirected.

Jinsol could never hate Jungeun, but it’s so, so easy to hate herself.

One of the younger outside hitters replaces Sooyoung’s place at the net as their ace wanders off to go nag at some of the other underclassmen. Jinsol pays little mind to her, attention still focused on Jungeun as she switches up her tossing style seamlessly, adjusting to the shorter height of the new spiker. Naturally versatile in a way Jinsol spent years trying to emulate—there’s a familiar envy swirling lazily in her stomach. She’s tired of it, but all she can do is try to push it down. 

A knee presses down on her back, snapping Jinsol out of her reverie. “What happened to stretching?” asks Sooyoung, voice drowning out her thoughts from where it comes right behind her ear. 

Jinsol grunts under the pressure, wiggling around until Sooyoung’s knee hits a sore spot in her back, right—there. “I was. Just taking a break.”

“Was an awfully long one,” says Sooyoung. She digs her knee harder into Jinsol’s back, and Jinsol leans forward to touch her toes, counting her breaths out. 

“Don’t you have better things to do than pay attention to me?”

“If I don’t, who will?” Sooyoung scoffs. She lets Jinsol shift positions into a different stretch before pressing down on her again. “Certainly not you.”

“I can take care of myself,” says Jinsol. “I got through all of middle school without a single major injury and I didn’t need you breathing down my back about my health.”

Sooyoung doesn’t say anything to that, just waits for Jinsol to roll over on her back so she can fold her leg back in yet another stretch. “You’ve been distracted recently.”

Jinsol pauses, and the pressure Sooyoung puts on her leg lightens just slightly. She hadn’t thought Sooyoung would notice—but she never does, and yet Sooyoung always notices. “Rough night,” she offers lamely. “Stayed up late doing those problem sets for math.”

Sooyoung shakes her head. “Not just today,” she says. “Like for the past few weeks. Since—”

She cuts herself off, frowning and pushing down harder. Jinsol hisses through gritted teeth, the burn in her hip tendons trying its best to crowd out the other thoughts in her brain, but it’s too late. The thing about being friends with Ha Sooyoung for three years is that Jinsol has already grown too attuned to her, can already predict what’s going to come out of her mouth before she can even say it. 

Sooyoung has never tried to tiptoe around her before, has never treated her so delicately as she does now—but Jinsol can’t say it’s not merited. There is a difference, after all. She can get back up after skinning a knee or failing a test, but she hasn’t yet learned how to bounce back from the premature and untimely end of her career in the sport she’s poured blood, sweat, and tears into from age seven. 

Somewhere, someone had pulled a lever switching up the train tracks and sending Jinsol hurtling onto an unknown railway, towards an unknown destination. It’s not enough to hope that she can find her way back to the original path—if she were good enough, she never would have left it in the first place. 

“You can say it,” she says, anyways. Sooyoung has never tiptoed around her before and she’s not about to let her start now. 

Sooyoung sighs, and Jinsol feels the tension leave her body in the same breath. “Since the line-up change.” Blunt—the pain has dulled, but it’s still there, lodged under her ribs. 

Jinsol laughs, starfished out on the floor as Sooyoung lets her leg drop. “I’ll get over it eventually. Just give me a little more time.”

It was meant to be a joke, but as soon as the words leave her mouth, it sounds more like a plea than anything else. Sooyoung purses her lips, eyes brimming with some unreadable emotion. The gym lights are too bright, blinking like sunspots at the edges of her vision. Jinsol closes her eyes. 

“You know you’re still a good player, right?”

Jinsol opens her eyes again, squinting. The lines of Sooyoung’s face are twisted into something like exasperation as she stares down at Jinsol. “You’re a still good setter. It’s not like Jungeun took that away from you.”

Jinsol laughs again, but the sound is harsh and grating. “She didn’t, but she still replaced me.”

“Jinsol—” Sooyoung starts, but cuts herself off again. This time, Jinsol doesn’t know what she was going to say, probably because Sooyoung herself didn’t even know what she wanted to say. There’s only so much she can do.

“Shouldn’t you be happy? She tosses to you better than I did.”

“Don’t do that to me,” says Sooyoung, and Jinsol immediately feels guilty. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Jinsol knows, and yet. “I’m not bitter about it. It’s just the truth. You two work well together.”

“You and I work well together, too.” The force of Sooyoung’s gaze is too much to bear while she’s still lying down. Jinsol sits up with a sigh, staring at the far wall to avoid meeting her eyes. 

“Not well enough.”

For a moment, Jinsol thinks Sooyoung might finally leave her alone, wander off to bother someone else and leave her to wallow in her own misery. For a moment, she thinks she might want that. But then Sooyoung knocks her knee into Jinsol’s shoulder and she’s reminded that Sooyoung has never let her run away either. 

“You’re so stupid,” says Sooyoung. Normally Jinsol would bite something back at that, but this time she just lets it wash over her, recognizes it for what it really is. “Just because you’re not the official first-string setter anymore doesn’t mean you’re not this team’s setter anymore. You’re still our setter— _my_ setter.”

“So?” says Jinsol, just to challenge her, because she can. 

Sooyoung clicks her tongue, like she’s annoyed that Jinsol’s making her spell it all out for her but still willing to do it all the same. “It’s not like you’re suddenly useless or something. You’re still useful on court. We still need you.”

“For my jump serves,” Jinsol fills in, listless. “My one moment of glory, before I’m rotated out. I’ve become a one-hit wonder.”

She watches the underclassmen scurry around to clean up the gym and put everything back in order, the end of practice dawning upon them sooner than she thought. She’d feel bad about not helping, but if there’s anything she’s earned through years of being in this club—not her position, not her skills—it’s this. The privilege to sit and laze around and not help with clean-up. 

Sooyoung kicks her in the hip. Jinsol swings out a hand to swat her in the calf, but misses. 

“You’re such an idiot,” she says, because apparently she’s incapable of saying anything else besides calling Jinsol stupid. Jinsol understands, though—how could she not? “You don’t have to be the best to still be good enough. And you don’t have to do the same thing you always did to still make a difference.”

Volleyball, Jinsol has learned, is all about momentum. How to turn the flow of the game to your advantage. One good return after a series of points to the other team can rekindle a team’s motivation. One good serve is, sometimes, all it takes to change the game. It’s not the moment itself that’s the most important—it’s what you do with it. How you build on it. 

But you need to have that moment before you can do anything else. 

“Bye, Sooyoung-sunbae, Jinsol-sunbae!” Jiwoo, one of their outside hitters, yells at them as she’s leaving the gym. She waves furiously, the bag on her shoulder starting to slip. She’s always been so bright, ever since she first joined, and it’s a nice respite for Jinsol to be able to focus on her smiling face instead. “Jinsol-sunbae, your jump serves are so cool! Will you teach me how to do them?”

Jinsol smiles back, waving at her, and as she does she can feel the dark clouds in her mind slowly start to dissipate. “Fix your receives, and then we’ll talk.”

Jiwoo pouts like a puppy, and Jinsol can’t help but laugh. Sooyoung laughs too; Jinsol watches her out of the corner of her eye. “You heard her. No more running away from drills, Jiwoo-yah.”

“Okay,” Jiwoo says sullenly, pout slipping back into a smile as she makes her final goodbyes. They wave her off, smiling fondly after her. 

But Jinsol can’t stop looking at Sooyoung. More than the ace hitter of their team, she’s a star—someone who shines on court, who deserves the best players around her to push her to the top of her game. Jungeun is the best setter for her, yes, but Jinsol would do anything to keep her shining. Wants to be near her, like a planet orbiting the sun, drawn in by her gravity. Even if she’s not her setter.

She can still change the game. 

The train tracks that had realigned and forced her onto a new path are no less unknown, but somehow not as daunting as before.

“Well?” says Sooyoung, turning to look at her and find that Jinsol is already staring back. She holds a hand out. “You heard her.”

And Jinsol did, but she heard Sooyoung too. 

“Yeah.” She grabs Sooyoung’s hand, lets her pull her up to a standing position. Like this, they’re almost the same height, equals. Sooyoung’s eyes are clear. “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/88byeol)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [absolute limit switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29378172) by [luxeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxeme/pseuds/luxeme)




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